The Monied Rescue

The sectarian estrangement of Hamas from its chief financial sponsors saw the Gaza administrators wondering where their next paycheque would come from.  The electoral success of Hamas's founding fathers in Egypt might have resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood playing the role of financial advocate if it weren't for the fact that Egypt is in dire economic straits.  Enter Qatar's emir, and that problem is solved.

Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is a storied hero in Gaza.  Celebrated for his extraordinary vision of Hamas representing a handy political-military tool useful to Qatar's agenda.  Which is a puzzle unto itself.  Since, of course, both Turkey and Qatar, Sunni majority-nations, still adhere to their friendship with Shia-dominated, theocratic Islamist Republic of Iran.

Paradoxically, both Turkey and Qatar, formerly very friendly with Syria, now represent the Alawite regime's sternest critics.

Iran has dispatched its elite Quds division of the Republican Guard to confer with, strategize with, battle alongside the Syrian military in its life-and-death struggle with the Sunni rebels intent on removing the Baath Alawite regime from power in Syria.  Yet for some peculiar and most Byzantine and entirely Middle East reasoning, Qatar and Turkey have not severed relations with Iran while condemning Syria harshly for its slaughter of Sunni civilians.

The untangling of these skeins of Middle East diplomacy and entanglements can be confusing and misleading.  The single clear and understood exception to the interrelationships and sectarian and tribal adversities is the collective agreement on the existence of a Jewish state in a geography consecrated to Islam, even a perpetually fractious Islam representing an affront to Islam.

In deciding to champion Hamas which strong-armed its way into the undivided ownership of Gaza, unceremoniously and viciously ousting Fatah in the process, Sheik Hamad has infuriated the Palestinian Authority, greatly offended that Qatar chose not to heed the PA's appeal to Arab leaders to boycott Gaza.  But Qatar, filthy rich from petroleum, is its own master, and it finds common cause with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's little brother, Hamas.

Mohammed Salem

Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani with Gaza's Ismail Haniyeh

"Qatar now is directly involving itself in the Palestinian issue.  It is certainly a bold step that goes beyond what any other country in the region would have done", commented Ghanem Nuseibeh of London-based consultancy Cornerstone Global. Yes, certainly; but what, precisely, does that portend?

The Sheik is urging Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh toward reconciliation.  Mahmoud Abbas reminds the Sheik that he is the internationally recognized leader of the Palestinians.  "It is quite strange that the emir of Qatar should take sides with Hamas, that he will favour Hamas over Fatah, that he would even decide to take sides in the Palestinian internal conflict", commented an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.

Strange, yes, but this is a geography where exceedingly unexpected and strange things are commonplace occurrences.  This is simply yet another of them.  Strange too is that these initiatives are taking place orchestrated by an ally of the United States; an ally in the sense that Qatar holds a major U.S. air base with thousands of American troops stationed there. 

And that the close ties that Qatar maintains with Iran have not been strained by Qatar's being the most insistent and vocal adversary of the Syrian Alawite regime.